


Bars

by damselindisguise



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Blind Character, But So Is Matt, Daredevil (TV) Spoilers, Fisk Is A Badass As Always, Gen, Just Not Physically For Either Of Them, Matt Goes To See Fisk In Prison, Other, Post-Series, Prison, Spoilers, Villain and Hero Have An Intense Conversation More Like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damselindisguise/pseuds/damselindisguise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fire still lurks on his skin like the Russian's safe houses still burn; Matt still can't let go of everything that happened with Wilson Fisk and the rest of the crime ring running the city. So he makes a decision to go and see the Kingpin in prison. He just forgot that Fisk plays chess with his words, and he's looking to checkmate Matt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bars

**Author's Note:**

> ((A/N: This is a one-shot, but I may expand it into a full story if I decide that I could go on with the plot. It's not a very long one-shot, but it could easily function as a Prologue if I feel it after writing it up and see some community reaction. Please note that, being post-series, it has spoilers for the show. There is no shipping in this story, but should it go full length, some may manifest. Also, can we just give Vincent D'Onofrio and Charlie Cox some serious props for their amazing roles? I always am hanging on their every word on the show, it's just great. In any case, enjoy, and thanks for reading! I do not own Daredevil, and I make no money off of this.))

Matt doesn’t, per se, want to go see Fisk. He really doesn’t, not after all that the scheming man did against him and the city. 

The burning Russian buildings, that sticks out prominently, the four blazes like the city was going under a sea of fire as they burnt brighter than any light that could possibly shine in the ocean of towers that is New York, looming just over Hell’s Kitchen at the edge of their small, self contained, crime ridden little world of crime and poverty and hate. He sometimes will climb a building and imagine he can see the lights, just like he imagined he could see the fire, and the lights never ever scorch his sight that doesn’t even exist the way the blazes could. 

Something inside of him spurs him to finally go Wilson Fisk in prison, to wash the heat of the fire off of his skin and the smoke out of his hair, out his suit, out of the tie that wants to choke his neck. He decides that way that he needs to go see Fisk, if only for his own gains from the encounter, hopefully. 

So Matthew Murdock goes to see Wilson Fisk. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and the Kingpin who wanted to save it, in his own demented way. Matt wants to sneer at that idea, sometimes, that the city could be saved, or that Fisk could be the one to do it, he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s pride, hubris, which makes him want to sneer- a superiority, that he can save the city? Or maybe he can’t, and that is why. He cannot decide. 

Not yet, at least.

He doesn’t know whether to don the Devil suit and go to the prison, or to go as Matt Murdock- he even considers momentarily donning the black suit again, just to defend against being seen, but the reds are dimmed enough that they function near as well, in Matt’s honest, if possibly biased, opinion, so he tosses that out right away. 

He thinks of asking Foggy what to do, but his best friend is still walking on eggshells with the whole Devil of Hell's Kitchen thing, so he refrains from talking about it as often as possible with his best friend- which means he doesn't actually want to address the issue with the other lawyer. So he thinks about it on his own, dodging concerned stares from Karen and knowing looks from Foggy whilst failing to go see Claire. He finds he's distracted and fighting crime less and less, brooding more and more instead.

He eventually dons the Devil suit and heads to the prison- planning be damned, he's too distracted by all that's going through his head concerning Fisk's crime ring to focus. His billy clubs are firmly in their holsters- he's not interested in hurting cops just to have a conversation with the man within the prison. 

The vigilante scales the fence carefully, tearing his suit only a little in the process, and then heads inside, carefully maneuvering the hallways- it's hard to break out of a prison, but that doesn't mean its easy to break in. The guards are all a little tired, obviously, and he avoids their heartbeats and listens to the whirring of the cameras until he is into the prisoner wing, and then heads to the cell that marks Fisk's heartbeat, his scent- Matt can't forget his arch-nemesis, not easy enough at all, so he knows right where to find the crime lord. 

When he does, he stills, and he can hear the way Fisk shifts and looks out between the bars of his cell. "You," he says, his voice full of thick malice like molasses, and the cot creaks as he sits up and walks to the edge of the cell, his shoes thumping softly as he takes two hard steps to stand just within the bars.

The metallic scent of the metal mixes with a rough, unpleasant scent of detergent and cotton covering the sharp-yet-soft scent of carbolic soap, calling to mind whiskers rubbing across Matt's hand when he feels male faces. 

"Can you see what you've done to me, at all?" Fisk asks, his voice stumbling and deep, yet angry, "Do you even have enough sense to see what you've turned my life into?" As he says this, Matt watches him, the world on fire around him, and Fisk continues, "You turned it into misery. In here, they breed what I don't want to become. They make me want to.... want to- be cruel for the sake of being cruel. You see, Vanessa held me back from that, and for that, I love her. I always will, for many things. But you- you- made me turn off my mind and act like-" 

Fisk cuts himself off, makes fists, Matt can hear the way his bones creak with the savage strength he applies to his own hands. "Your father," Daredevil says, "You don't want to be like your father. Bill Fisk, right?" "Don't talk about him," Fisk says, gritting his teeth, and Matt feels a shock of sympathy he can't allow himself to note for this man that he hates, all the same. 

"How dare you put me in here," Fisk says, "When you and I are working for the same thing? To save this city from criminals- I cannot believe your nerve." "We aren't working for the same thing," Daredevil says, shaking his head at the crime lord in the cell, "You're using crime to get what you want- stopping crime with crime is like burning the bottom of a tower to put out the top. It just doesn't work like that, Fisk." 

Fisk snorts, shaking his head powerfully, his jumpsuit rustling rawly against his pinking skin. "Aren't you committing crime every time you go out in that costume and fight criminals? Isn't there supposed to be some semblance of, ah, mutual respect between a hero and the law? Instead, you hide your face, and hide in the shadows. At least Captain America and the Iron Man and the Avengers have the understanding to show their identities to the world and to its law enforcement. I stood before the city with my goal, if I did hide some of my more contrived methods; can you say the same?"

Slowly, Daredevil looks at the ground and then he raises his head and says, "Mutual respect sends his regards- but there isn't any between me and the paid off law. The ones that are still clean- I respect them, they respect me. They know what I'm doing. And you? I have no respect for a spineless Kingpin who uses murder to incur his own rule safely." 

"Spineless?" Fisk laughs, "I have more spine than you. I show my face when I fight somebody. I don't have to use my own body to win. My mind and my men are good enough." 

Matt sighs into his mask and says, "I came here for a reason, Fisk, not to play word games with you." 

"Then what is it that you want, from the Kingpin?" Fisk asks, leaning against the legs of the bed and spreading his arms wide. 

Matt sits still for a moment and tastes the words he may say, rolls them over carefully and then says, "Closure."

"Closure for what?" snorts Fisk, "You have it. I am in prison. Gao is in the wind, the Russians and Leeland are dead, the Japanese are gone. My operations ended- for the moment, of course- and Wesley has been shot like swiss cheese by your little bitch Karen. What's her last name? Page? We'll see when I get out of here, I'd say."

Matt surges forward against the bars, hand going to the holster for his billy club. Fisk laughs, head leaned back, and someone calls out, "Shut up, Wilson, I'm trying to sleep!" "You can sleep when you're dead!" He turns back to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, sneering, and Matt can smell the way his breathing changes with his personality, turning more thick and powerful, his Kingpin side raging over Wilson Fisk.

"What are you going to do, vigilante?" he asks, "Beat me? You'll have to let me out to do that. We'll see how well round two turns out for you, if you do." Matt doesn't feel afraid, intimated, anything. He just feels an empty cold inside of him.

"Your threats don't scare me, Fisk," he says, "Because I know why you respect me, but I don't you." He slowly leans in, wrapping his fingers around the bars, and says, "Because I am your better, Wilson. And we both know it."

The Kingpin shouts in rage and lashes out to punch Daredevil, but the vigilante pulls away and grabs Fisk's arm, tugging hard and ramming his face into the bars. The big man drops like a sack of rocks, holding his nose as it breaks like a ketchup packet, and Matt's skin cools off, feels at ease for the first time in a long time.

"I got my closure," he says, breathless, "That's all I needed. Goodbye, Fisk."

The Devil of Hell's Kitchen turns his back and stalks out of the hall, letting the cameras see him this time. Let them know, then, that he was here, that he was the one to break the Kingpin's nose. It will show them all two times over, this time- he is not to be trifled with, not anymore than the crime lord currently residing in the cell with the broken nose. 

Matthew Murdock peels off the Devil suit and showers, the prison- and the fire, and all of it- in his wake. At last, he's ready to continue. 

The clock ticks thunderously, and he hears, far away, a clock tower clang midnight as a new day arrives.

And Matt smiles under the hot spray.


End file.
